Non-Spanish European powers used the Black Legend to highlight the unspeakable cruelty the Spanish inflicted on Native Americans. Why would they want to do that?

Explanation:

The Black Legend was a historiographical phenomenon that was made with the main goal of discrediting Spain as the leading European power in the 16th century. Non-Spanish European powers took advantage of this and used it to highlight the unspeakable cruelty the Spanish inflicted on Native Americans in order to justify their own attempts to colonize the Americas and portray themselves favorably, and in term taking the publics eye off of themselves.

explanation: we can only guess at how our actions may be perceived in the future. doing something really big like killing lots of people, saving lots of people, affecting the lives of lots of people is a sure fire way of being remembered in historical records. we can also make a difference in the history records by being a small influence on something bigger, whether that is as a civil servant, scientist or artist.

of course you could argue that we all affect history just as tiny cogs in a   bigger machine.

if you mean how do people influence our opinions of things which have already happened, then simply by writing a book which looks at things form a different perspective and trying to convince people that this perspective is more accurate or truthful. people do it all the time i.e. richard the third was a terrible or was he? plenty would disagree, it's just that their views aren't the most widely known.n:

what the question i might be able to